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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422555">Its cold in the city</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/itwasbutitwasnt/pseuds/itwasbutitwasnt'>itwasbutitwasnt</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, Hurt/Comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:54:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>988</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422555</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/itwasbutitwasnt/pseuds/itwasbutitwasnt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was winter in the city and despite the recent spate of warm weather it was snowing. Of course it was snowing the day Hermione decided to leave five minutes late on their two year anniversary. Of course it was because wasn't that just her luck lately, with the most recent items she had been searching for remaining ever elusive and running late for a very important date.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Its cold in the city</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my first work so please be nice. I will love you forever if you comment.<br/>I hope you all like it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The landscape glittered as snow fell, muffling the world in a way such that only the sound of snow remained. New York preened under the snow, showing only its prettiest colors, and delighting in quiet. For some this was a delight but for Hermione trudging her way across midtown for work it was not. The quiet was broken as Hermione slipped at a crosswalk and fell cursing winter. She was running late to a date on the other side of town which pulled her away from the delightful warmth of the radiator next to her window in the studio apartment that she called home. It perhaps wasn't the greatest deal to some but it marked January 27th, the first date that she and Pansy had ever gone on. </p>
<p>It had only been two years since Ginny had decided to play matchmaker and send Hermione on a date with her school yard bully, Pansy Parkinson. It was not that Hermione had intentionally lost contact with most of her schoolmates - friends or foes - but rather it happened gradually. First it was the cancelled plans at local pubs as she tried to manage the muggle job she had with her wizard friends and soon it was forgetting her wand behind at home. Well she hadn't quite gotten to that point yet as old habits ran deep and even years of therapy with 'mind healers' and later with America's equivalent did not let her forget old ingrained habits. </p>
<p>The muggle job as a historian of the middle ages that Hermione got right out of Hogwarts was supposed to be a temporary thing, one to provide her income while she decided what to do with the rest of her life. Harry had flown off to merlin knows where after the battle, intent on working with dragons under Charlie Weasley but the last she had heard of him he was in the alps. Ron while at one point wanting to be an auror had abandoned that dream in favor of working at the joke shop that the twins had poured so much of their lives into. </p>
<p>It was easier for Hermione to slip through the cracks, falling all the way into a curation job at the Met and for other private wizarding collections. Easy to move to New York, a place unscarred by the recent British Wizarding war. Easy to forget that there were people back home that cared for her and easy to forget that she cared for them too. It was Ginny then, turning up on her doorstep at half nine at night one year and forcing Hermione on a date that let her remember. </p>
<p>It wasn't Ginny though that reminded Hermione to eat and sleep when the one perfect painting remained out of reach, it wasn't Ginny that pulled Hermione out of bed on days that looked a little too much like her time on the run, scared and ready to die at only seventeen. It was not Ginny that found a bakery and bookstore tucked away in the far corners of lower manhattan that held every kind of book. It was not Ginny that would stay there for hours while Hermione browsed and debated with anyone who walked by the merits of one author or another. </p>
<p>But all of that would come later, it would come after Ginny showed up at half nine one January night to remind Hermione that there was more out there beyond old books and painting and solid facts, there was more out there beyond reciting facts to herself at three am when there was simply no way that any of them had made it out alive. When she woke up in bed alone and it was hard to remember that her boys were out there alive and well rather than dead in a forgotten corner of a forest in Britain. </p>
<p>But it was Ginny that forced out of the apartment to a charming restaurant on the upper east side. It was there, seated at a table waiting for her date to arrive that she saw Pansy for the first time in several years. Pansy had not only left the UK but she had done so in style, Hermione would soon learn, threw herself a party that everyone assumed to be in celebration of her engagement to Malfoy and it was there she announced that she was leaving for the states and a job with Vogue. It was also there, as Hermione would learn much much later on, that she came out to her peers. </p>
<p>It was soon after they went on their first date that Pansy began working in fashion in earnest and it was a year after their first date that she debuted the first wizarding haute couture house.   </p>
<p>It was Pansy that Hermione would fall in love with, slowly like her feelings were stuck in molasses and then all at once in such a way that she couldn't find a way out even if she wanted too. It was Pansy in the early mornings and late nights during fashion weeks stressed for the newest season of her designs, Pansy who could not go a day without tea even at her most stressed. It was Pansy who filled their studio apartment with penciled sketches one day and Hermione's favorite books the next. Pansy who hated mornings and warm milk but could not stand it if Hermione left without saying goodbye and if she caught Pansy after a nightmare would only fall back asleep after hot chocolate. </p>
<p>It was Hermione who realized that when the weight of their past was too much a cup of hot chocolate did the most to shield them. It was Pansy of course who found the best hot chocolate supplier they could afford and had it shipped in time for Hermione's birthday. It was Hermione that bought them the two chipped mugs that they still use now for Pansy's birthday.</p>
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